30-Nov-07: Unrelenting rocket attacks

The spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces says that, during this past week, the Palestinian Aabs fired more than 70 mortar shells and no fewer than 25 Qassam rockets into Israel. Most of these landed in Israel's western Negev. Two more Qassams crashed into Israel this morning from the Gaza Strip.

"We have orders not to fire any rockets on Tuesday because of the Annapolis summit, but we can resume normal activities after the summit ends," one of the terrorists is quoted saying in a Washington Times report this week. The Pal-Arab, who says he is totally loyal to the political leadership of Fatah, would not say who was giving the orders or what the chain of command is. Many analysts (says the same Washington Times report) point out that Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority provides cash to many members of that terror group through security salaries or, since Arafat's death, through a monthly social security payout.

For its part the IDF remains active against the terror attacks. Its statement says the IDF "carried out aerial and ground attacks during the past week and identified hitting 5 Palestinian terrorist involved in the firing of rocket and mortar shells at Israel from the southern Gaza. The IDF also identified and hit 15 Palestinian gunmen who were identified operating against IDF forces in the Gaza Strip and near the security fence, 6 of them in the past 24 hours... the IDF carried out attacks against 2 posts of the Hamas terror organization in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The attacks were carried in response to the continuous mortar shelling of Israeli
communities."

28-Nov-07: Wednesday mortar attacks

The Palestinian terrorists of Gaza were busy this morning (Wednesday) delivering on the threats they have been making all week. With the events in Annapolis distracting the world's attention from the nation-building struggle of Gaza's desperate 'militants', they fired five mortars into Israel this morning. Clearly they had no alternative - these are desperate people. One hit the town of Kerem Shalom in southern Israel, causing structural damage. Two more struck south of Kibbutz Erez. A fourth landed in territory occupied by Hamas, just next to the security fence dividing southern Gaza from the communities of southern Israel. No injuries were reported in any of the explosions but that, it has to be remembered, was not the intention of the thugs.

28-Nov-07: Some observations on a theft

There's a report in today's news about an act of looting carried out by Israeli forces. We'd like to learn a few things from it.

First the basic details as carried by Ynet:

IDF soldier arrested for stealing 200 shekels from Palestinian car

Soldier charged with looting – an offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment - for pocketing bill found during search of Palestinian car at West Bank checkpoint. Defense attorney says soldier used stolen money to pay off family debts Hanan Greenberg - Published: 11.28.07, 00:11 / Israel News
Military Police officials have confirmed the arrest of a soldier from the Givati Brigade after the latter confessed to stealing a 200 shekel bill ($50) from a Palestinian vehicle after searching it as it passed through an Israeli checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus several weeks ago. A military policewoman who was also manning the checkpoint spotted him pocketing the money but apparently chose not to report it. Several days after the incident occurred the soldier approached his commanders and confessed to the crime. Because the nature of the transgression had involved an offense against Palestinian civilians, the military launched a criminal investigation into the matter and took the soldier into custody last week. The Southern Command's military court extended the soldier's remand until Wednesday – when military prosecutors are scheduled to file an indictment against him. The Military Advocate General's office reportedly plans to charge the soldier with looting, which if convicted on carries a sentence of up to 10 years imprisonment...

The rest of the article is here. Now some thoughts:

1. The soldier gave himself up, evidently driven by conscience pangs. Having soldiers with a conscience in your armed forces is a blessing.
2. The entire middle east is caught up with 'peace' discussions in Maryland but this act of petty theft made national headlines in Israel. It may be only $50 but Israelis understand the moral price of stealing and what it does to your society. They also identify with the victim, and understand that $50 is real money for a working person.
   
3. Theft is a grossly overused concept in this part of the world because of the shallowness of Israel's critics who, for the most part, fail to understand our connection to this land and our thousands of years of ownership and connection here. But theft does mean something and you need to be morally clear about how to (a) deal with it and (b) know when an action is not theft.
   
4. The police saw the offense but ignored it. In a decent society, police are indispensable but not sufficient.
5. The soldier acted out of a desire to repay a debt. $50 debts, even in a prosperous society like Israel's, are a daily part of the anxieties that sit on the collective consciousness. You might wish your defence forces to be pre-occupied with larger or different issues. But a citizen-army is based on all kinds of people, and dealing with personal debts is among the things on their minds.
   
6. The largest newspaper in this country carried the story. In an open, democratic society like Israel, the media play a constructive and revealing role even when what they're reporting is embarrassing.
7. After years of tension, fighting and conflict with the Arabs, your average Israeli remains sensitive to the need to be polite and decent to them to the extent possible.
8. The activities of the Machsom Watch activists (obnoxious self-righteous political extremists who place themselves near Israeli on-duty service personnel manning the security checkpoints, interfering with their essential work and generally making politically-inspired trouble in the course of demonizing and delegitimizing what soldiers and armies have to do in times of conflict) make sense only if you believe we need guardians of a politicized form of morality waving their fingers and sticking their noses into Israeli life.
   
9. As critically important as national security is for a country under attack from all directions, in Israel it's always tempered by concerns over whether it's being done by appropriate rules.
10. Israelis are neither better nor worse than people in other societies. People's nature doesn't vary that much from society to society. But the way a society and its institutions responds to anti-social behaviour in their midst is the real measure of that society. Relative to the appalling alternatives here in the Middle East, it's good to know we live in a place where people and institutions get agitated - to the point of national headlines - over a $50 theft by a soldier.

27-Nov-07: A rocket attack every three hours

Haaretz says the Israel Air Force attacked a Hamas post in Khan Yunis Tuesday. The attack came after a day of mortar shells fired at Israel, with some landing near the Kerem Shalom community. Four Qassams and four mortars were fired into Israel during the day.

Little noticed by anyone other than Israelis, Palestinian-Arab terrorists have fired an average of one Qassam rocket every 3 hours into Israel day after day since June. They don't care who or what they hit - that's what makes them terrorists. Some 200 rockets have been fired into Israel since the beginning of November alone.

Israel has the military hardware to make this stop immediately - but chooses restraint instead. Keep this in mind the next time casualty figures are publicized by their propagandists.

27-Nov-07: From the International-relations-via-kid-gloves department

1,500 Qaeda Members Freed After Counseling By ELI LAKE
Staff Reporter of the Sun (November 27, 2007)

WASHINGTON — On the eve of the Annapolis summit on the Middle East conflict, the Saudi royal family released 1,500 members of Al Qaeda from prison, requiring them only to promise to refrain from jihad within the Arabian Peninsula. The presence of the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, at the peace parley has been touted by the White House and the State Department as an important diplomatic breakthrough.

Mr. Faisal has said he was reluctant to attend the meeting, the first time the Saudis would be formal participants in an international peace conference dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict. In an interview with Time magazine, he said he would not shake the Israeli prime minister's hand and that he was only interested in a response to his kingdom's peace offer, a full withdrawal from the territory Israel won in 1967 in exchange for peace.

However, while the State Department was wooing the Saudi foreign minister, the kingdom's Interior Ministry released about 1,500 Al Qaeda members arrested in crackdowns that began in 2003 against the group headed by Osama bin Laden.

The story first broke over the weekend in the Saudi newspaper Al Watan. In an interview with the newspaper, a member of a special committee to reform jihadists in the kingdom, Muhammad al-Nujaimi, said the newly released prisoners had been reformed. "The committee has met around 5,000 times to offer counseling to 3,200 people, who were accused of embracing the takfir ideology. The committee has successfully completed reforming 1,500 people," he said.

You have to hand it to the Saudis: a breathtaking success. What are they doing right that no one else is doing? And we can surely trust Saudi Arabia when it comes to terrorism. After all, when did we last hear of Saudi terrorists causing harm to anyone?

But wait. That 1,500 number rings a bell. Ah yes, here it is:

Since September 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia has questioned more than 1,500 individuals, arrested hundreds of suspects, and succeeded in extraditing Al-Qaeda members from other countries to face justice. The Kingdom has audited its charities and enacted strict financial control measures to ensure that evildoers cannot take advantage of the generosity of our citizens. Bank accounts of suspected individuals have been frozen and some of the most stringent banking regulations implemented. Saudi Arabia today has some of the toughest counter-terrorism laws and regulations in the world.

Go check it out. It's currently on the official Royal Saudi Embassy in Washington DC website. (Probably a coincidence, but what if all the internal investigations into Saudi complicity in the massacres of 9/11 resulted in a religious conversion ceremony followed by a 'promise you won't do it again' pledge?)

All this thoroughness, this dedication to stamping out terrorism, is why we get a warm feeling all over when we read about the head of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (by far the world's largest and most lucrative family business) instructing the government of the United Kingdom last month in how to deal effectively with terrorists. As the BBC headline put it: Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has accused Britain of not doing enough to fight international terrorism. (You can't make this stuff up.)

But one aspect of this really bothers us. What could the Saudis possibly mean when they say the terrorists had to promise "to refrain from jihad within the Arabian Peninsula". What sort of retraining is that? Could it be that the Saudis have no problem seeing their home-grown terrorists (like these and these and these and these) go out and create mayhem and carnage so long as it's not producing Saudi victims? Strange that the Saudis seem to be saying nothing about that aspect of the story.

The war on terrorism is war. For those of us who want our families and our societies to be free of the ongoing threat of harm by the barbarians, it's the war. There's much more to know about this than the official Saudi version suggests.

27-Nov-07: Is failure inevitable? Could very well be.

We're listening to BBC World on Tuesday morning as we write this. They're leading their news bulletins with a familiar mantra: "So far (in Annapolis) the Palestinians and the Israelis have been unable to find common ground towards a peace settlement."

Unable to find common ground, and we haven't even gotten to the end of the first day. Why is this? We're not about to offer simple answers. But the background analysis of the courageous Palestinian Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh throws - as usual - invaluable light on a complex issue. Today he writes that the official Palestinian delegation to the Annapolis meeting are themselves the problem or at least a large part of it. Listen to what he says:

"Headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the delegation consists of several senior officials who, for the past 14 years, have been conducting failed negotiations with Israel. And this is almost the same team that went with Yasser Arafat to the botched Camp David summit in July 2000. In addition to Abbas, the Palestinian delegation to Annapolis is headed by top Fatah operative Ahmed Qurei [Abu Ala]. The two were the main architects of the Oslo Accords. In the eyes of many Palestinians (and Israelis), these accords have brought nothing but disaster and bloodshed to both people. As former prime ministers in the PA, both Abbas and Qurei did little to halt terrorism, end the anarchy on the Palestinian street or combat financial corruption. Abbas and Qurei were said to have dissuaded Arafat during the Camp David summit from accepting Israeli and American proposals for a final settlement of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Three other senior officials who were present at Camp David are now accompanying Abbas to the Annapolis conference: Saeb Erekat, Yasser Abed Rabbo and Nabil Sha'ath. These officials, too, played a role back them in convincing Arafat that the proposals made by former prime minister Ehud Barak and former president Bill Clinton were insufficient. Almost all the members of the Palestinian negotiating team at Camp David continue to blame Israel for the failure of the summit. None of them has ever put any blame on Arafat.

Many Palestinians still associate figures like Sha'ath, Abed Rabbo and Qurei with financial corruption and mismanagement. In fact, one of the reasons why Hamas won the parliamentary election in January 2006 was because of the continued presence of such officials in Abbas's inner circle...

It's also hard to detect any changes, if at all, in the positions of the Palestinian negotiators, who continue to stick to the same demands they have been making for decades: a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, the removal of all Jewish settlements and recognition of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees. Seven years after the failed Camp David summit, there is no reason to believe that the Palestinian negotiators are about to soften their position and offer major concessions. It's also unlikely that the Palestinian negotiators would accept anything less than what they and Arafat rejected at Camp David. Even if they wanted, these negotiators wouldn't be able to present different views because they would be immediately condemned by the Arab and Islamic masses as traitors. The heavy price that the Palestinians have paid since the beginning of the second intifada (more than 4,500 killed and thousands injured) also makes it impossible for any negotiator to display flexibility, at least not in the short term. On the contrary, with Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups breathing down their necks, Abbas and his negotiators are even likely to toughen their stance to prove that they are not "surrenderists" and "defeatists" and that they did not compromise the rights of the Palestinians.

It's worth pointing out at an earlier stage in his career, Abu Toameh served as one of Arafat's in-house journalists until coming to very negative and life-changing conclusions about the man and his work. His reportage is notable for the courage of his independent standpoint and the plain-spokenness of his writing. It's astonishing to us (we realize this makes us sound naive) that his analysis does not get wider circulation. His is one of the few voices that reports with consistent insight and accuracy from both sides of the deep gulf dividing Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.

26-Nov-07: Hamas caught in the act

It's not about to stop. The terrorism that confronts Israelis every day has not packed up and headed off to Maryland. It's exactly where it was yesterday, last week, last year and last century. (Although we should add that it has sent along several of its most outspoken representatives.)

YNet is reporting this morning that Israeli forces found and destroyed a Pal-Arab terror gang today (Monday) engaged in Qassam-launching in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip controlled by the Hamas regime. Palestinian sources are saying that one foot-soldier of Hamas was killed in the Israeli strike; two other terrorists were wounded. The IDF also located and struck Palestinians who attempted to place explosive devices near the critically-important (to the Palestinians, that is) Erez crossing.

25-Nov-07: Heightened anxiety

The focus, as usual, is on the big events as the Annapolis conference starts to take shape. But here in Jerusalem, at street level, we have police sirens whoop-whooping in all directions these past few hours. From our window overlooking one of the major arterial roads, we see traffic backed up because of upgraded police activity throughout the city.

Heightened security warnings have been in effect all day, particularly affecting northern Jerusalem where we live. There are no fewer than ten specific terror alerts in effect today, plus dozens of general warnings. The police have thrown up roadblocks in numerous locations and are checking all incoming vehicle traffic. Haaretz is reporting ("Two terrorists believed on their way to Jerusalem") that Jerusalem police are on high alert this afternoon. They have gotten a tip about two Pal-Arab terrorists en route to Jerusalem to carry out an attack in the city sometime between now and Tuesday. For what it's worth, the police say they don't believe the terrorists have managed to enter the city. But we hear police helicopters over our roof as we write this. And there are reports that the Police Special Anti-Terror Unit is currently being deployed in various parts of northern Jerusalem.

It's almost not newsworthy that Border Police at a checkpoint near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron arrested yet another two Palestinians this morning armed with knives and bullets. They are now in custody and being questioned. And at the Beit Iba checkpoint west of Nablus, a young Pal-Arab man was arrested with a homemade grenade on his body. The explosive was neutralized by sappers and that suspect is also being interrogated.

Making its peace-loving contribution to the atmosphere, Hamas let it be known yesterday that the time is not right for talks with Israel and that Pal-Arab president Mahmoud Abbas lacks a mandate to negotiate. To emphasize the point, Ahmed Yousef, one of the inner circle of advisers and speechifiers around Hamas strongman Ismail Haniyeh went on the record yesterday saying that Hamas (which for months has been absurdly painted by mainstream media reporters as cracking down on terror attacks on Israelis from Gaza) can increase the explosive power of its rockets into Israel.

The Islamic militant group (says the Malaysia Sun) has threatened to pack warheads with the type of explosives that could prove extremely dangerous, were they to land in populated areas. Ahmed Yousef, an adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, presented the threat prior to Monday's Middle-East peace conference, to be hosted by the U.S in Annapolis, Maryland. Hamas does not want the talks to be held due to Palestinian political parties being so divided. Israeli officials said they were taking the threats seriously and have cautioned that Hamas may attempt to interrupt the U.S. conference by sending more rockets into Israel.

The foreign ministry's spokesman here said "We take these threats very seriously" and we agree. Experience teaches that the threats of the terrorists are the one truly reliable aspect of their fraudulent, self-serving arguments and existence.

Hamas' warheads currently don't reach as far as Jerusalem. But their walking-and-driving human bombs can and do. For the sake of their children and ours, pray that their satanic ambitions are thwarted this time.


UPDATE 4pm: Traffic is moving again. JPost says the state of 'red alert' was lowered in the last few minutes, but there's no word about whether any suspects were caught.

23-Nov-07: Lethal gestures

One of this blog's authors has an op-ed in today's edition of the ISRAEL INSIDE DAILY BLOG. Frimet's article is reproduced below.

Lethal Gestures - Frimet Roth 23-Nov-07

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert seems intent on out-doing even the most extreme Israeli left-wingers.

On Tuesday November 20, he made clear to his nation that terrorism, annoying though it may be, is a peripheral concern. The previous night, a 29-year old father of two was murdered (see "20-Nov-07: A Troubling Escalation") when members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade sprayed his car with bullets. Olmert's response? He won't let this incident keep him from Annapolis.

This leaves us, his targeted constituents, wondering: where is our security on his list of priorities?

Yesterday Olmert appeared to answer that question and the news was disappointing. He announced a generous gift of arms to the parent-organization of the very terrorists who executed Monday's attack, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah. Fifty armored vehicles, a thousand rifles and 2 million rounds of ammunition will be delivered to them by November 27th. Olmert justifies this as an advance goodwill gesture to the "moderates" with whom he will be meeting on that date in Annapolis.

Yossi Beilin, whom nobody can accuse of harboring any right-wing leanings, wrote about arms gifts (YNet: "Don't Give 'Em Guns") in April 2007:

"The last thing we need to add to the Palestinian Authority is more weapons. When the PA was established it had to be allowed to acquire arms, because without enforcing law and order there would have been no significances to the creation of such Authority. Today, arming one element in the PA due to the intention to see Fatah twist Hamas' arm soon could end up as a terrible boomerang. The historical experience of such "boosts" is horrifying. Moreover, in this case it would constitute an incentive for Hamas to arm itself even more, and if clashes between the two sides break out it would not be much of a gamble to assume Hamas would emerge victorious."

Beilin, along with the IDF and the Shin Bet, has been staunchly opposed to Olmert's latest move out of fear that the arms would reach Hamas. That is precisely what happened to Israel's earlier arms hand-outs to Fatah after their internecine clashes with Hamas.

However this week's terrorism highlights an even more immediate danger: the transfer of these weapons to Fatah's own terror wing. Does anyone still doubt that is inevitable?

The Annapolis architects have selected a meaningful date for launching this gala negotiation-fest. November 27th is my daughter Malki's birthday. On that day, my husband and I will say psalms at her grave.

Perhaps, as he embarks on his quest for that elusive peace, Olmert will spare a moment to remember the many hundreds of innocent Israelis murdered, along with Malki, in the last Intifada. And then, I hope, he may be spurred to reassess his priorities. We deserve to have our security, our lives, as his top priority. Ranked higher than the concessions and the "good-will gestures" and the "boosts" which he has been showering on Abbas.

Isn't that every prime minister's most basic duty?

22-Nov-07: Wednesday's attacks (ignored as usual by mainstream media)

With talk of peace all the vogue, the media entirely fail to report (as usual) that last night (Wednesday), two more Qassam rockets were fired from northern Gaza into Israel, according to Israeli reports. They landed near Sderot - one on a road within the southern city's limits; the other near a neighboring kibbutz. There were no reports of injuries or damage. In addition, several mortar shells were fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip at the Erez Crossing yesterday morning. These landed in open fields, causing no injuries or damage. Mortar and rocket attacks on civilian settlements inside Israel's borders are routinely ignored by editors and journalists. This creates tremendous distortions when analysts, politicians and observers report on 'disproportionate' responses by Israel. How can anyone fairly assess what's proportionate if they're unaware (that's the effect of the media blackout) of the events that precede?

21-Nov-07: On the true, base, really ultimate root causes of terror

Terrorism is like cancer. You don't argue with it, or try to understand it. You have to defeat it because otherwise it will defeat you and me. Jihadist terrorism in particular has a global agenda and no one is safe.

We're fed up with people doing moral gymnastics to explain and understand and really, really try to figure out what drives the terrorists, the jihadists. Time and again, otherwise intelligent, well-educated people resort - in trying to reach that elusive understanding - to shallow rationalizations. For instance, that the terrorists act out of desperation ("Suicide Bombing: Desperate Tactic" - BBC). Or the demented 'replacement' theology of the Palestinian Arab Sabeel organization that asserts "the phenomenon of suicide bombings... tragically arises from the deep misery and torment of many Palestinians. For how else can one explain it?"

One can explain it in an entirely different way without even touching on misery or torment by showing how the adherents of a particular form of a certain great religion have taken hatred - one of the most powerful human mindsets - and used it as the fuel for something unimaginably sick and dangerous. None of their faithful came into the world with that sort of hatred roiling within them. It was planted inside them over years of indoctrination and persuasion via a process involving millions of religious, political, community and educational leaders.

For those root-causers out there, here's a report from Pakistan via today's edition of The Australian:

...Horrifying new details emerged last night of the attempt by suicide bombers to kill Ms Bhutto on her return home from exile last month. Investigators from Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party said yesterday they believed the bomb, which killed 170 people and left hundreds more wounded, was strapped to a one-year-old child carried by its jihadist father. They said the suicide bomber tried repeatedly to carry the baby to Ms Bhutto's vehicle as she drove in a late-night cavalcade through the streets of Karachi. "At the point where the bombs exploded, Benazir Bhutto herself saw the man with the child and asked him to come closer so that she could hug or kiss the infant," investigators were reported as saying. "But someone came in between and a guard felt that the man with the child was not behaving normally. So the child was not allowed to come aboard Benazir's vehicle." Ms Bhutto is said to have told investigators she recalls the face of the man who was carrying the infant. She has asked to see recordings made by television news channels to try to identify the man.

A political settling of accounts, and the bomb is strapped to the body of some jihadist lunatic's one-year-old child. If you had to invent a proof that hate-based madness has hijacked them and their religion, you couldn't come up with anything more appalling than this.

It's cancer. Stop arguing, stop understanding. Start cutting.

20-Nov-07: Quote of the day from Netiv Ha'asarah, Southern Israel

"Everyone says there's a military operation on the way… but sometimes it feels like until there is bloodshed – real bloodshed – no one is going to give a damn."

- YNet: "We're living in an impossible environment: Gaza vicinity community of Netiv Ha'asara suffers another terrorist infiltration attempt amidst rocket barrages"
quoting a resident of the small farning community, located a mortar-shot's distance from the vipers' nest that is Hamas-controlled Gaza today

20-Nov-07: A worrying escalation

There's deepening concern here that the approach of the international conference in Annapolis is serving as a trigger for serious trouble.

More and more there's evidence that the Pal-Arab terror groups are seeking to showcase their desperation, their determination, their refusal to sit down with the hated Zionists etc. etc. by doing what they know best to do - bring chaos and death into their own lives and into the lives of us Israelis.

In the past twelve hours, we've seen three disturbing events (among others), each one pointing to a deliberate escalation in Palestinian terror actions. And both of them confirming the comments we made last week about the murderous involvements of the Mahmoud Abbas faction of the Pal-Arab Terror Industry (16-Nov-07: Cars burn as terror continues to rain down).

Last night, Ido Zoldan, 29, of Shavei Shomron was shot dead in his vehicle in a drive-by shooting. He was 29, the father of two young children: three-year-old Aharon and one-year-old Rachel. The IDF was combing the area during the night in search of the gunmen but past experience suggests this will be a fruitless search. The Palestinian establishment has far less difficulty in figuring out the identity of the heros who did this - they have openly claimed credit. Once again, it's the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Fatah branch that owes its alliegance to Mahmoud Abbas. Putting the matter beyond doubt, their press release said the killing was "an act of protest against the Annapolis conference and a response to Israeli crimes".

YNet says the Defense Ministry has five current specific warnings on attempts to carry out terrorist attacks, in addition to the usual several dozen ongoing general warnings of terrorist threats. This is very rarely reported in the general media outside Israel. But it's an inescapable fact of life confronting Israel's civil society. Israelis have learned to take seriously the warnings that issue from the security establishment here.

The Abbas/Fatah/Al-Aqsa people had a busy night; they also grabbed credit for a Monday night attack on beleagured Netiv Ha'asara, one of several Israeli communities (never occupied, never disputed, with no military significance - just a farming town) guilty of being unfortunately located within firing range of the vipers in Gaza. This time, the attack ended in failure. IDF soldiers patrolling in the vicinity last night identified three Palestinians climbing the security fence under cover of darkness, and opened fire, hitting some of the would-be attackers. There were no reports of injuries among the soldiers. Two of the terrorists were eliminated, and others fled back to where they came from, leaving their ladder perched against the community's periphery fence. Meanwhile, Netiv Ha'asarah residents were ordered to remain inside their homes. YNet quotes Netiv Ha'asara's security coordinator saying "It's a shame the government is not giving the IDF permission to act freely."

Also Monday, two Pal-Arab Gazans approached the security fence between their world and ours in a suspicious way (the military has long and bitter experience of identifying these people and their intentions) and were shot and killed. JPost quotes the military saying the two were likely trying to plant explosive devices on the patrol road used by army jeeps.

The Abbas regime issued its own warnings to Israel yesterday. One was a series of unexpected, new pre-conditions to the PA's participation in Annapolis (see Khaled Abu-Toameh's report in JPost). The other, issued by a spokesman for Abbas's Fatah faction, spoke of failure at Annapolis leading to "disaster" and "confrontations" in the region. "Failure of efforts to achieve peace will lead to a catastrophe, confrontation and political suicide for Israel," said Nayef Ishtawi, spokesman for the Shabiba Fatah youth movement. "Israeli intransigence will sabotage the conference and Israel will be fully and historically responsible for wasting a chance to achieve peace and security." (As happens so often, the plain-speaking Abu-Toameh is the only journalist anywhere to report this story.)

Meanwhile for its part, Israel's major contribution in the past 24 hours to the war against the terrorists was that "the Israeli cabinet approved the release of up to 500 Palestinian prisoners - out of the some 11,000 held by Israel - as a goodwill gesture to Abbas, a senior official told AFP."

Could this be what people mean when they speak of an asynchronous war?

UPDATE:

UPDATE 3-Dec-07: Three Palestinian Arabs have confessed to the murder. The details are here. It's important to know that the killers, gang-members in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's military wing, which owes its alliegance to Mahmoud Abbas, have day jobs as salaried policemen in the PA's official police force. Only the very naive, and people who rely entirely on non-Israeli sources for their news about what happens in this country, will be surprised. Quiet acts of murder and terror by uniformed representatives of the Palestinian 'establishment' are a fixture of life in this part of the world. To be kept in mind when 'painful compromises' are again on the discussion table.

19-Nov-07: Missile attacks continue while media and politicians fiddle

Almost entirely unreported in the news media - other than in Israel's online and paper-based news channels - missile attacks continue to bedevil life for thousands of Israelis, day after day.

More than six thousand of them in the past six years. Three a day, on average, month after month, year after year.

This morning (Monday), a loud explosion struck fear in the hearts of Israelis living in Ashkelon's southern neighborhoods as a Qassam rocket landed in an open area south of the city. Several additional rockets have been fired at Ashkelon over the past two weeks, as we have reported here. Most of them have landed in the city's southern industrial zone.

Security sources say the firing of rockets into the uncontested, never-occupied, never-Palestinian, entirely-civilian Ashkelon area has become more accurate in recent days. Several rockets have landed near what the media euphemistically term strategic facilities in the city over the past few weeks. One of them caused substantial damage.

Also this morning, a Palestinian rocket landed inside the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council area. Two more rockets were fired around midnight last night (Sunday), one of them crashing into a community near Netivot, another falling near Ashkelon's industrial zone.

Ashkelon residents said that they heard a particularly loud explosion today. YNet quotes one who lives nearby saying that "the explosion was so strong my house trembled. We are used to Qassam rockets, but far from here, in the industrial zone. This is the first time the rocket lands so close. It was terrifying."

A boarding school is located not far from where the rocket landed today, badly frightening the children there.

So... if and when Israeli forces go in to Gaza and put a stop to the lethal Qassam attacks - something the local authorities in the Hamas regime have no interest in doing - will the near-total absence of reporting about Israel absorbing these attacks daily for months influence public opinion in Europe, the United States and elsewhere? You can count on it.

UPDATE 11:00pm Monday: YNet is reporting tonight that some 20 mortar shells fired by the Pal-Arabs from northern Gaza landed in Israel's western Negev this afternoon (Monday). So far no reports of injuries or damage. Nine mortars landed near the Erez crossing, near the Gaza security fence, damaging a number of cars parked in the area. Haaretz estimates the count at five Qassam rockets and 18 mortar shells, and adds that a female soldier suffered shock when a rocket struck the city of Ashkelon, and was taken to Barzilai Medical Center for treatment. Several buildings suffered light damage.

16-Nov-07: Cars burn as terror continues to rain down

Three Qassams were fired into Israel from Bet Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip during the early hours of Saturday morning. The multi-rocket attack caused serious property damage.

Residents of the Israeli city Sderot in the south of the country were awakened at 1:30 am this morning, the Sabbath, by the sound of a rocket crashing into Hativat Hanegev Street in an Orthodox neighborhood in the city. Five vehicles that were parked on the street were damaged, and two of them caught fire. Fortunately no injuries, but that's not the intention of the terrorists.

"There was a lot of commotion; firefighters, police and Magen David Adom paramedics arrived at the scene," said Nikolai Avramov, whose car was damaged in the attack. "The children are used to the noise, but the nighttime attack was harder on them."

"We haven't before seen such damage caused by a Qassam," said Moshe Omer, spokesman for the Lachish region fire department.

"The 'Color Red' alert system is rarely activated during the night, so when it did I headed out to the scene of the attack," photographer Or Tal told Ynet. "It was frightening – three burning cars and people panicking."

Additional rockets later today (Saturday) landed in an open field near a kibbutz in the Negev; no injuries or damage were reported.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist organization claimed responsibility for today's rocket attacks. As a timely reminder, this is one of the terror groups connected to the Fatah political party of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority. (That's him on the shoulders of a terrorist leader in a December 2004 photo, surrounded by Al-Aqsa terrorists and their supporters.) According to Palestinian officials, most of the Brigades' members are on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority, serving in the Brigades and also in one or another of the Palestinian Authority's fourteen security services.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged the Arabs last year to "wipe [Israel] off the map," the Al-Aqsa group issued a statement saying that they "hold identification with and overall support of the position and declaration of the Iranian president, who called with all honesty to wipe Israel off the map of the world". The same statement said "We stress our support of the Iranian president's position toward the fictitious Zionist state, which will disappear with the help of Allah."

Readers in search of a 'kinder, gentler' portrait of Al-Aqsa can find it in an Associated Press profile ("Humanizing the Unhuman") linked here.

15-Nov-07: Thursday rockets from Hamas Gaza Strip

In today's war actions emanating from Hamas-controlled Gaza, three Qassam rockets were fired from the northern Gaza Strip into Israel, landing in Sderot and the western Negev.

One Qassam landed near a potato packing house in a Negev industrial area, causing some damage. Four people were treated for shock and one woman was evacuated to the hospital for further treatment.

A second rocket landed in Sderot, near a residence. YNet quotes an eye-witness: "I heard a loud blast and when I came out of the fortified room I saw that the Qassam landed right next to the house. We were very fortunate no one was hurt, because usually children play soccer out here or ride their bicycle. I don't even want to think what could have happened if there were kids here."

Responding immediately to the first attack, IDF helicopters fired a missile directly at a Qassam launch cell located in Beit Lahiya. Palestinian sources say two of their terror operatives were killed and three others injured in the Israeli strike. One of the dead gunmen is a member of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction. (He's the president of the Palestinian Authority.) The affiliation of the second dead terrorist was not immediately known.

14-Nov-07: Think of them as stabbings with a long knife

More terrorism this morning from Hamas-controlled Gaza: Israel Radio's 7am bulletin is reporting two more Qassam attacks, with the rockets striking Sderot in southern Israel. It's 100% pure luck that these deadly weapons largely (but not entirely) keep missing innocent victims. As we keep saying, that's never the intention of the thugs who keep shooting them.

13-Nov-07: Chaos in Gaza: business as usual

Three more Qassam rockets were fired into Israel earlier this evening, according to a 6:45pm report on Israel Radio.

This time we know why the vastly over-staffed ranks of the Gazan police, army, quasi-armies, secret police, internal security and para-military forces of the Hamas regime were once again somehow unable to intercept and prevent the terror attack. (Preventing terrorism is what the gullible supporters of Hamas in the west never tire of claiming is being done by Hamas all the time.) Unable, because they're occupied with other tasks.

Occupied, you say? With what are they so busy, you ask?

Yesterday, Monday, some 250,000 Fatah supporters gathered in a Gaza City square to mark the third anniversary of the death of the beloved Yasser Arafat, the master terrorist who symbolized both alive and dead the tragic dimensions of the Palestinian Arab story. (Note that in death, as in life, Arafat is yet again accommodated in the super-luxurious surroundings to which he and his family grew accustomed, all of it paid for then and now by his impoverished followers. And presumably funded by the various governments that have provide financial aid to the Arafat regime and its successors for the past decade and a half.)

The rally, according to Associated Press, was largely peaceful. But as with so much else in the world of the Palestinian Arabs, it ended in mayhem as Hamas police opened fire on Fatah protesters throwing stones.

Opened fire? Why would they do that?

Taher Nunu, a Hamas spokesman, said "some elements in the rally created an atmosphere of chaos." He also said speeches "were full of incitement against the government

Clear enough. Now you're presumably thinking the fire directed at their brethren was rubber bullets. After all, the hated Israelis have long used rubber bullets, normally non-lethal but quite effective at suppressing protests and street-violence. But no, rubber bullets were not on the Hamas agenda. The rocks began to fly, so the 'open fire' command was promptly given. Thousands of panicked demonstrators ran for cover, but not fast enough. At least seven Pal-Arab civilians are dead. 85 people (according to some reports, hundreds) were wounded by live ammunition. Palestinian ammunition. A veritable bloodbath.

With the taste of Palestinian Arab blood fresh in their nostrils, the Hamas security forces devoted today, Tuesday, to delivering a second set of punches into the national body. In the aftermath of the Fatah rally and of yesterday's carnage in the streets of Gaza caused by themselves, Hamas rounded up some 400 people (their brothers, cousins and neighbours it need hardly be pointed out) in overnight raids, according to Fatah sources today.

A busy time.

But not too busy for them to fire off more unguided missiles into more homes of more Zionists. After all, a people headed for a brilliant national renaissance needs to keep its priorities sorted out, right? Why don't we give them a state?

12-Nov-07: Attack south of Ashkelon

A Qassam rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip this morning landed in an open area south of the city of Ashkelon. There were no reports of injuries or damage. (Ynet)

11-Nov-07: Islamic Jihad's rockets and what's behind them

There's a report this morning of yet another Qassam rocket being fired from north Gaza into one of the numerous Israeli agricultural communities south of Ashkelon. This one struck a barn and killed two cows. Two additional Qassams were earlier today reported to have landed in open fields in Israel's western Negev area. No injuries or damage were reported.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility in the name of its al-Quds Brigades. Al-Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem. The road to Jerusalem, in the minds of the thugs, is paved with dead cows and dead-anything-else that happens to be Jewish.

But actually the thugs are not that picky. Islamic Jihad is in the midst of an on/off blood-feud with the Hamas regime that currently rules chaotic Gaza. A few days ago, there were reports that an Islamic Jihad terrorist was shot dead by a Hamas policeman at a funeral of yet another Islamic Jihadist who in turn had been killed in clashes with Hamas police forces in Rafah (Gaza) two weeks earlier. During that funeral, dozens of Islamic Jihadists and children hurled stones at what are termed "Hamas police posts", "prompting Hamas police members to open fire at them" in the laconic words of a Palestinian source. (Got that? Palestinian Arab children throw rocks, so the police open fire.)

The deadly in-fighting is directly related to what Israeli communities unfortunate enough to be located near Gaza have to go through. The International Herald Tribune described it this way about ten days ago:

A pair of Islamic Jihad gunmen didn't like the idea of getting stopped at a Hamas police roadblock so they crashed through it — and set off days of gun battles that left two dead and several wounded.

The recent clash in southern Gaza was a sign that the long-simmering rivalry between the Islamic militant movements — both backed by Iran and uncompromising in their rejection of Israel — is increasingly turning into confrontation.

Islamic Jihad is too small to dislodge Hamas, but it has repeatedly challenged Hamas' authority and tried to push the bigger group into confrontation with Israel through continued rocket fire on Israeli border towns. Islamic Jihad has also become a vehicle for dissent, providing a home to fighters from the defeated Fatah movement.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in June, and Islamic Jihad chafes at the Hamas claim to be the territory's sole ruler. "Hamas wants to control totally how everything is going and wants everything to be with permission from Hamas," complained Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza.

Both groups are now funded and supported by Iran and Syria, where their leaderships are based. But Hamas' closeness to Iran and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah is relatively new, and has irked Islamic Jihad.

Since the June Hamas takeover of Gaza, tensions between the two groups have intensified... Continued rocket attacks, especially on Gaza-Israel border crossings, have been Islamic Jihad's most effective way of demonstrating independence.

So... when you hear analysts and political activists speak about the Palestinian fight for independence, keep in mind that what that means, in the case of Islamic Jihad, is independence from their fellow Iran-sponsored, rocket-equipped, ideological brothers/rivals, the thugs of Hamas.

And we're caught right in the middle of it.

10-Nov-07: Qassam and counter-qassam

Earlier today (Saturday), Palestinian terrorists fired two more Qassam rockets into the Israeli town of Sderot. The Qassams landed south of town and no injuries or damage were reported. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, asserting that "the Israeli army would never stop home-made Palestinian rockets even if it unleashed a wide offensive against the Gaza Strip".

Almost immediately, Israeli forces attacked the spot from where the rockets had been launched. Newsagencies are reporting that Palestinian sources variously say a civilian was injured or killed by the Israeli air strike. The Palestinians, at the same time, say the Islamic Jihadists escaped unharmed.

But the IDF - which normally takes considerable care with its pronouncements - says its counter-attack was successful and the cell members responsible for firing the Qassam and the rocket launcher they operated were eliminated. But as this Reuters picture (above) exemplifies, the Pal-Arab regime has little problem in programming replacements. (This child was snapped at another in an endless series of Hamas rallies in Gaza, this one on Friday, holding a toy gun. The image embodies more eloquently than any blog could the moral sickness at the heart of the Pal-Arab thugocracy.)

7-Nov-07: Still raining destruction and terror

YNet says four mortar shells were fired from northern Gaza towards Israel Wednesday, landing near the beleagured, long-suffering community of Nativ Haasara. No injuries or damage were reported.

Israel's government decided two weeks ago to strategically reduce the amount of electricity it supplies to Gaza in response to the unceasing rockets and mortar attacks on Israel by terror forces in Gaza. Before that policy could be implemented, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered it suspended until safeguards could be instituted to prevent humanitarian harm. That's still, as of today, what characterizes Israel's stance in this war against terror: a citizenry absorbing daily terror attacks, and the overpowering military might of Israel busy with constructing humanitarian checks-and-balances.

There's a price to pay for taking this moral high ground, fighting with the military equivalent of one arm tied behind its back. A background report by AFP this week points out that more than 3,000 Israelis living in Sderot, a town located five kilometres east of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, have left town during recent years. Its population stands today at 22,000 residents; so more than 10 percent of the local population has left. "The fact that people continue living here is a miracle," AFP quotes the town's mayor as saying. "More and more people prefer keeping their families safe by moving out."

Widely interpreted as a warning of impending action, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said two days ago that each passing day brings closer the prospect of a full-scale military operation in Gaza: "We are not happy about it and we would be happy if circumstances would prevent [military intervention], but the day is definitely nearing," he said. The JTA confirms this, writing this week that Israeli forces have been training and stockpiling equipment at a pace that would suggest a major Gaza action is weeks away at most.

But two days is a long time in the middle east. Yesterday he said: "What happens in Gaza brings us closer to a broader operation every day. But we should get to that point only after we consider and examine and exhaust all the other types of operational possibilities."

The exhaustion of possibilities is evidently in full swing.

7-Nov-07: Global jihadism, chapter 3,856

Three Qassam rockets struck southern Israel again today and this evening, reports Haaretz.

The first crashed into an open area with no damage or injuries.

The second damaged several cars in Sderot, a city that has never been occupied, never been contested, never been home to Palestinian Arabs, has no military installations and is under constant attack simply because it's within reach of the ever-growing arsenal of weapons installed by Pal-Arab terror groups under the active and watchful supervision of the jihadist Hamas regime. Three civilians were suffering from medically-treated shock in the wake of this evening's attack.

The third rocket hit an open area near Sderot, causing neither damage nor injuries.

Haaretz points out that Palestinian rockets scatter-shot into Israel have killed seven people in recent years and continue to disrupt life in western Negev towns on a daily basis.

There's something sadly obvious about today's attacks and yesterday's and last week's and last year's. The terrorists have no interest in who or what gets hit, little ability to guide their bombs, and zero interest in compromise painful or otherwise, or in a settlement or in peace. Just lobbing the explosives over the border is a complete fulfillment of their strategy... as it is for jihadist terrorists throughout the world.

Just how widespread is this hate-based religious perversion? Twenty jihadists were picked up by European police today in towns across Italy, and in Britain, France and Portugal. The initiative for the co-ordinated raids came from police in the Milan area. The initiative for the ongoing acts of terror came from pulpits and political platforms the length and breadth of virtually every country in the world. And that's before we speak of the carnage perpetrated in northern Afghanistan today and in Iraq almost daily. Saudi Arabia may be the hub of world terror as the headlines in yesterday's London Times assert ("Saudi Arabia is hub of world terror; The desert kingdom supplies the cash and the killers"). But the war of the terrorists is being pushed forward in almost every country on earth.

Does anyone imagine for a moment that today's police raids mean European terror is being defeated? The reality of the current stage in this ongoing war is illustrated by an intercepted conversation quoted in today's Independent newspaper (Britain): "Things are being done with extreme calm" says the British-based jihadist. "Haste does not bring the desired results".

Believe them.

It's deeply worrying that not enough people understand what the jihadists mean by 'desired results'. Or how all-encompassing, geographically, their target is. The ultimate root cause of terrorism (root causes are endlessly discussed in conferences on terror like the one we attended in Washington 2 weeks ago) is the astonishing apathy of the nations against whom it's being waged.

3-Nov-07: Mortars directed at Israeli towns again

Five mortars crashed into the southern Israeli town of Netiv Ha'asarah this evening (Saturday night). From where we sit, there's little doubt about the cynical agenda of the terrorists (we mentioned this in an earlier blog).

1-Nov-07: Firing 13 rockets today, the thugs' agenda is clear

Ynet is reporting that a barrage of at least 13 Qassam rockets was launched into southern Israel from Gaza this morning. Islamic Jihad has already taken open responsibility for the attack.

As of mid-morning, nine rocket landings had been located in beleaguered Sderot and vicinity. No injuries are reported but there has been property damage. One Qassam landed near Sapir College in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council area, just five meters from one of the campus's employees, but did not explode.

The Gazan terror gangs are aware that the Israeli media have been reporting calls in the last week by Israeli military commanders in the area for a wide-ranging operation in the Strip to eliminate the lethal sites. A broad Israeli response is just what they seem to invite.

The cynical manipulation of the lives and welfare of their own people continues to be the calling card of the Palestinian Arab terrorists. Israeli sources have been reporting for months that the Pal-Arabs embed themselves as deeply as possible within civilian populations, with or without their co-operation. The goal is plain: to provoke an Israeli strike that will cause the widest possible loss of life and property. Now there's film footage documenting how it works.

A video clip released yesterday by Israeli intelligence shows a cell of three Pal-Arabs launching mortar shells into Israel from the middle of a Gaza schoolyard. The video shows the boys school and a red circle that tracks the terrorists as they prepare to fire the mortars. Military officials said Israeli forces withheld fire, fearing civilians would be harmed.

They quote an IDF officer saying: "They don't think twice about firing Qassam rockets near crowded public areas, even though they're fully aware that they're endangering innocent civilians".

To which we would add: what makes them terrorists, and very far from the freedom fighters their apologists sometimes claim them to be, is their cold-blooded disregard for anyone else's life or property.

Being adherents of a death cult makes this a relatively safe option for the jihadists - they get ample theological support from the lunatic religious leaders of Gaza and elsewhere in the Islamicist world. Worse, they are actively aided and abetted by the hate-based polemics of political leaders in the Arab world and elsewhere. And by the idiot analysts of the terror-embracing margins of Western society who manage to subvert the plain meaning of events in order to advance an ideological narrative. Here's an example from many that have appeared in the past few hours: "Israel is exploiting the firing of Qassam rockets into Israeli territory as its pretext for this barrage of measures in Gaza, citing the lives of innocent..." blah blah.

What is it about unguided terrorist rockets fired randomly into someone else's home (not disputed, never "occupied", not military in any way) that these people don't understand?

UPDATE (3-Nov-07): The graphic Israeli reconnaissance video showing Palestinan terrorists launching mortars from a schoolyard is evidently too graphic for some of their apologists. It's reported that "Islamists at YouTube have succeeded in getting this video flagged as objectionable". Evidently there are aspects of terrorist random bombings of peaceful, Israeli civilian settlements that the Palestinian Arabs and their spinners find objectionable.